Wednesday, March 02, 2005

WorldNetDaily: U.N. influence on court's juvenile execution ban

The influence consists of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that no person shall be executed upon conviction of any crime committed while that person was a minor. And yet the international consensus seems to be that a minor is perfectly qualified to decide to abort her baby. And--wait a minute! When did the US Senate ratify the UNCRC? Did I miss something? I don't think so...

Actually, the decision in the case of Roper v. Simmons reminds me of a certain motion picture--now what was it's name?--something about a pretty little eight-year-old who had a few bad habits, among which were lying, cheating--and murder. Ah, yes--The Bad Seed! Well, I'll tell you how that film would play out if Warner Bros. Pictures remade it today. First, it would turn out pretty much as the original Broadway play did--meaning that little Rhoda Penmark would get away with it. The doctors would pump out her little stomach, and Colonel Penmark would take Rhoda in, suspecting nothing--until perhaps she took a notion to kill him, as she had killed her classmate and Old Leroy the handyman.

And second, when Leroy started threatening her with execution, and jawing on about "a little blue chair for little boys and a little pink chair for little girls," she would smugly say,

You're lying, Leroy! Shows how much you know! The United States Supreme Court, in Roper v. Simmons, said that they can't execute kids for things they did while they were kids. So if you tell anyone, then I'll simply go to the reform school, and I'll be out in twenty-five years. And I'll make friends in that reform school--loyal friends. And we'll come after you, and...
As Mark Twain would no doubt say, I will close the curtain of charity on the sort of detailed threat that Rhoda Penmark would make next. (If you doubt that a sweet-faced eight-year-old girl was quite capable of making dire threats--and even carrying them out--as far back as fifty years ago, then you need to see this movie! But I digress.) In fact, this case might just as well have been called Roper v. Penmark, because the facts in Simmons were just as horrible as in that movie, and the attitude of the defendant just as cold and calculating as that of the character Rhoda Penmark.

Well, Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy, are you satisfied? Will you be satisfied when one of those stone-cold evil juvenile murderers targets one of your relatives? Think about it...